On the pitch, Bayern Munich may well be the most dominant club in European football at the moment. They’re not bad on the internet, either.

Manchester City, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus would have something to say about that, but since the return of legendary coach Jupp Heynckes, Bayern have barely been stoppable, certainly in games that matter.

Indeed, in their Champions League last 16 tie against Besiktas, the heavy victory Bayern achieved in the first leg meant that the game was a bit of a drab affair for the neutral – fans of the German club would have been loving every moment, but the one-sided nature of the contest meant that perhaps the most interesting part of the game was the most novel part: the appearance of a cat on the field of play.

Animals at sporting events are often cause for humour and interest. Bayern dealt with it perfectly, though.

The communications team did a great job at spotting the moment and jumping on it, creating numerous photoshopped versions of player images to include the cat, and even one of a cat taking a selfie in front of the Bayern squad who were posing for a team photo. They even changed their club hashtag – #MiaSanMia – to #MiaSanMeow. So far, so normal… sort of. But that one incident led to the club picking up over 2 million interactions across social media, and the selfie post, with 590k likes, was the club’s best-performing Instagram post ever.

That’s not a bad showing under any circumstances, but to have managed to generate such interest during a game which was more or less already won is even more impressive.

It just goes to show how picking up on a trend and knowing your audience are so important when it comes to social media. That, and the fact that cat content is always the winner on the internet.